Life is Awesome

Well, I guess I'm not ready to give up on blogging just yet, lol.  Looking over the Truehope message board, it occured to me that people write about their problems, problems, problems, and then they get better and you never hear from them again.  I thought it might be helpful to keep track of the successes too.  I know sometimes it is irritating to see people doing well when you are feeling poorly, but maybe it will give some readers hope as well.  And maybe a realistic idea of what normal looks like.

I am feeling really good today.  Since last spring when I started being more active I have had muscle pain in some body part pretty much every day.  It has been irritating me, because it seemed like evidence of what poor condition my body is in.  Today, with yet another new sore muscle, I realized that really it is evidence that my body is waking up.  This thought feels so much better!  Now suddenly I am welcoming each new ache as a new body part comes back online.  Excellent!

I am also feeling good because I really seem to be hitting my stride with productivity in my crafts.  At the new year I made a small plan/goal to do hand sewing in the morning, machine sewing in the afternoon, and knitting in the evening.  I was finding that if I spend more than an hour or so on the internet, and more than 2 hours watching tv, I feel off when I go to bed.  I feel frustrated, like my day was wasted.  Most days I feel pretty good if I manage 2 out of the 3, but the past couple of days I have been 3 for 3, and it makes a big difference.  I also find that the later in the day that I turn on the computer, the better my day goes, lol.

Ok, time to switch off, now.  Things to do!

Recovered

I was thinking last night that it is time to draw a line in the sand and say that I am pretty much done here. Everything is looking good, and I think it is more accurate to say now that I am recovered, rather than in recovery. Here's a quick rundown of where I stand on the various issues.

Mood

These days I am happy and satisfied for most of the day, every day. My various craft projects give me a great deal of enjoyment, and I will probably be starting a craft-based business down the road. There is definitely a positive feedback loop that goes on with my crafts. If I'm feeling good then I want to make something, and if I make something then I feel good. I definitely remember though, how it was when I was depressed, when nothing gave me any enjoyment. So I am not suggesting that knitting is the ticket to happiness, or anything. But I do think that if you can find something to appreciate, however rare or small, and then keep looking for more, it is the ticket to start spiralling up instead of down.

Motivation

This is probably where I've made the most progress since my one year anniversary post. These days I enjoy being busy and working on various projects throughout the day. Things that used to seem challenging are now easy to take on. It is not the same as the frenetic drive to keep going that I had with hypomania, everything is easy and balanced. Really, the improvement in this category has been massive. But it came late, well after the one year mark.

Protracted Withdrawal

These days, there are only 3 or 4 days a month when protracted withdrawal is at all an issue. I take one 500 mg capsule of tryptophan every morning to start off the day right, and if I am very active I will take 1 or 2 more during the day. This keeps my symptoms at zero, except for the two to three days before my period, which is when I still may get some breakthrough symptoms. The symptoms I get are usually headache or neck and shoulder pain, and sometimes fatigue. Sometimes also I get very hungry, which is a sure sign that the drugs are back in my bloodstream. An extra tryptophan takes care of that.

Sleep

I can say now that my sleep pattern is completely normal. My alarm is set for 8:30 am, and most days I am awake before it, even in the winter. I have a long relaxation/meditation routine in the evening, so I spend 60-90 minutes unwinding and preparing for sleep, but when I decide to go to sleep I am asleep within 5 minutes. I sleep well and I am never tired in the morning.

Fitness

I have not yet started to exercise just for the sake of fitness, but I am gradually being capable of more and more activity during the day. If there is one area with the most room for improvement, this is probably it. But, it doesn't worry me, I am able to do everything I want to do now, and if I want to do more in the future, I'm sure I'll be able to build up to it.

Appetite

Except for a day or two a month when the protracted withdrawal makes me hungry, I would say that my appetite is back to normal as well. I'm not plagued by cravings any more, and I enjoy a pretty balanced and light diet. What I am noticing is that I am not thinking about food all the time, I think I have a much healthier relationship with it. I can eat an apple without wishing I was eating chocolate cake instead. I enjoy my food.

This fall I promised myself that I would stop weighing myself, so I don't know exactly what I weigh any more. My clothes still fit though, so I don't think there has been much variation. People tell me I look slimmer, but I think what they are really seeing is that I am much happier, so I look better.

Empowerplus Dosage

As I mentioned recently, I am taking 10 capsules a day now. Because the Empowerplus somehow gives me thyroid support as well as mood support, that seems to be the right level for me. It may be that in the spring, which is traditionally a more "up" period for me, I may need less.


I think I will be taking a break from posting here for a while. If anything really interesting happens I will be back, but for now, I'd much rather be writing about my crafts than my health. I will respond to comments, and I am still on the Truehope message boards most days. I wish everyone the best in their own journeys to recovery and health!

Links:

Where it all began
One year anniversary
Truehope's website

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to everyone who celebrates a holiday at this time of year!  The countdown is on for me.  We open our presents on Christmas Eve, tomorrow night, and I have nothing wrapped and work still to do on two gifts.  I threw my back out five days ago, which has really made things challenging.  It is healing very slowly, probably because I am using it too much.  But you know, back injuries are really a catch-22, they need some activity but not too much, it is hard to get the right mix.  Last year I wrapped my presents about 3 hours before we opened them, and I think it will be much the same this year.

I have eliminated the tiredness I mentioned in the last post.  In the early fall I cut back to a maintenance dose of 8 Empowerplus capsules per day.  Any more was feeling like too much.  When I realized in November that my thyroid was probably getting slow, I tried raising my dose to 10.  It worked like a charm!  I felt good again.  Before my period I still had the sluggishness return, and raising my dose to 12 for a few days helped with that.  I will stay at 10 to 12 over the winter, it may be that my thyroid or some other system needs more then.

My activity level is so improved, even compared to last spring, that I have to remind myself to take stock every once in a while.  Things like laundry, which used to be an exhausting two day enterprise, are now just background activity while I am busy with something else.  Things that used to seem overwhelming I now do without a second thought.  When I wrote my one year anniversary post, I wasn't sure if the improvements would continue.  They are, and I can't wait to see where I will be in five years!  It is a complete change from the slow road to nowhere that I was on with meds.

Routing Depression

Readers of my last post may have noticed a grumpy tone in my writing.  I would say that for 2 or 3 days around then I would have qualified as clinically depressed.  I kept catching myself in typical depressed thoughts, which I haven't had since my last few days of depression in March.  I would give you an example, but fortunately I've forgotton them now!  My Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) practice soon fixed that, however.  As soon as I became aware of what was going on, I was able to stop it without any real effort at all.  That is the great thing about CBT, once you have practiced it and seen how inaccurate those depressed thoughts are, then it is easy to clear them up when they come back.

Why was I depressed at all?  Well, I don't think it is reasonable to expect to never be depressed again.  The main thing is to recognize it and turn it around early.  Physically, I am still getting protracted withdrawal before and during my period.  I think something is going on with the hormones at that time that increases the detox.  Plus, I still get a pre-menstrual migraine, which was pretty bad this month.  The low tyramine diet has eliminated all my other migraines, but that one remains.  Although I only take Advil for my migraines now, I think even that causes a bit of protracted withdrawal as well. 

The depression is gone, but for several days now I have been dead tired by 5:00 pm.  This is reminding me of how I felt before my thyroid was diagnosed, so I am thinking I should get it checked again. 

Also, I have been very busy.  I embarked on this homemade Christmas gift foolishness, so that is taking a lot of effort.  But you know, I am pulling it off.  My family is used to me flaking out of projects, so I am thinking they will be surprised. 

And, I have come up with an idea that I like for my own business.  I mentioned last spring that this is what I wanted to do, and I think I finally have an idea that has legs.  I will get more serious about it after the holidays, and I am thinking it will probably be a year before I can launch, but it is great to be planning and working on something again!

It Takes As Long As It Takes

I have been reading a lot of frustrated posts on the Truehope message boards lately about how long this process is.  Today I am frustrated too.  I set myself an ambitious plan to make a few Christmas gifts, and I realized this morning it is just not going to happen.  I will probably only get one of the three done.  I am still too tired and weak to spend the long hours at the sewing machine that would have been necessary.  So, that is disappointing.

When I started Empowerplus in May 2009 my only real goal was to stop the decline I was in, and to be stable without drugs.  That goal has been met.  What I didn't expect was the huge physical toll withdrawal would take.  It is frustrating to always have to curb my activity because I am still having protracted withdrawal symptoms after all this time.

But at the same time, I'm aware that I've set the bar a lot higher these days than it used to be.  I may not be at the sewing machine, but I am busy with other crafts most of the day.  I was sore when I started hand stitching; now I can stitch for hours without pain.  I was sore when I started knitting again; ditto.  So I guess I know that perseverance will pay off in the long run.

Even my attention span is improving.  The other day I worked all day on the SAME PROJECT.  That is really saying something.

And, let's be clear.  My protracted withdrawal symptoms only come after some new type of exertion now.  It is only when I raise the bar.  Sometimes it feels like I am fighting for every millimetre, but I can't deny the trend is there.  Plus, I have planned to make Christmas presents before, and I have never done it.  So one is an infinite improvement over none.  My old therapist in California used to say, when I felt like was going nowhere fast, that recovery takes as long as it takes, and she was right.

How Did I Get Here?

Bipolar is a physical illness.  I believe moderate to major depression is too.  I do not believe you can cure them just by changing your thoughts any easier than you can cure cancer by changing your thoughts, although you do hear about rare cases where that happens.  But that's rare, and usually a physical intervention is needed.  For bipolar and depression, I believe the best physical intervention is a micronutrient approach like Empowerplus.

However, I do believe it was poor thought choices that made me sick in the first place.  It would be easy to blame it all on my thyroid, because bipolar is a symptom of Hashimoto's.  I probably had my first hypomania when I was 10, that I remember, and my first depression when I was 11.  Long before puberty.  I don't know if the Hashimoto's would have already been active then.  You do read about infants and toddlers with hypothyroidism, so it may be possible.

I do recall that at an early age, 8 or 9, I became attracted to the idea of being "jaded."  I liked that "been there, done that, bored with it all" aura that some people had.  It struck me as a way to be interesting, and I wanted to be like that.  Gradually I stopped taking pleasure in things.

A movie score would have a dramatic minor chord there.  I really think now that was the beginning of it all.  Probably the hallmark of my long adult depression was a complete inability to appreciate anything.  I was living in the beautiful San Francisco Bay area, with the sunshine and the sea air and flowers all year long.  I knew someone else who had recovered from depression, who told me that he loved just going for walks and seeing all the flowers.  I went for walks and looked at the flowers and I felt nothing.  I looked at them and knew intellectually that they were beautiful, but they did not make me happy.

Daily exercise, by the way, in the sunshine and sea air, also did nothing to improve my mood.

So, I had periodic depressions in high school and university, and very productive periods that made me successful in school and work.  The two years leading up to my breakdown at 35 were progressively more and more stressful.  I had a fairly heavy travel schedule that kept me physically off balance, and an increasingly more adversarial work environment.  Looking back, I see that a lot of that was my own fault.  I saw slights where none was intended, and I consistently looked at the negative side of the situation.  You may not be able to control the situation, but you can control your reaction to it.  I always saw things in the worst possible light.

When you are feeling bad it is your spirit sending you clues that things are not right.  If you ignore the clues they get bigger.  It took many years of seeing things in a negative light, and ignoring my feelings and physical symptoms, for things to collapse totally.  I do believe that my brain has always worked a little differently, which is why I was hit with bipolar depression instead of heart disease or cancer, but it was my own thoughts that created my physical illness.

That is why I think Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and meditation are such an important part of recovery.  Physical help such as Empowerplus will only get you so far if you have a negative thought pattern, which I believe is the root cause of illness.  Learning to feel our feelings, and accept the guidance that they are giving us, is crucial to long term success.

Low Tyramine Diet

I'm just checking in today to let you know that things have significantly improved since I figured out that the MAOI Parnate was still active in my system.  I've gone on a low tyramine diet.  This was quite a change for me, because once I did the research I realized that practically everything I was eating was high in tyramine.  So no wonder it was a problem.  I've eliminated cheese, cold cuts, aged meats (yes, the good stuff), bananas, soy sauce and chocolate.  It was hard for the first few days, but once I saw that a lapse was immediately making me ill, it became easier.  And, I keep telling myself that it's not forever.

Coffee is off the table again too, for now.  I'm getting used to drinking chai.  It doesn't have the same buzz, but I guess that's the point.

Anyway, it is quite a relief not to be getting sick all the time with no idea why.  It's nice to be able to get out and about again.